


As Long As I'm Living My Baby You'll Be

by AnotherDayInHistory



Series: The Five Stages of Falling in Love [3]
Category: The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-06 11:31:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5415185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherDayInHistory/pseuds/AnotherDayInHistory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'll love you forever,<br/>I'll like you for always,<br/>As long as i'm living,<br/>My baby you'll be.</p><p>When Gwen and Blake experience the first big loss in their relationship, how will they cope?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll Love You Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StefaniFan](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=StefaniFan).



> This story was inspired by a plot idea StefaniFan gave me! She wanted to read a story about Gwen and Blake trying to have more children, potentially a little girl. I think she/he ( I apologize, I don't know!) was hoping for some tooth-rotting fluff. Oops. 
> 
> Warning for discussion and talk about miscarriage and depression. If either of these things bother you, please don't read. I mean no disrespect to anyone who has suffered from either of these personal issues. This story just came to me while I was thinking about something else and I decided it needed to be written. Also warning for discussion of medical issues probably inaccurately. I have never experienced the things I am writing about so I have very little way to know what happens during the things that happen in this story.

She’s back in  LA when it happens. After touring for almost three months (getting to see her children through Blake’s phone FaceTime and for twelve hours during desperate red-eyes she took back to California), she’s finally booked a mid-size arena near Orange County to perform songs from her new album. 

 

 

 The crowd’s a good one; it’s packed full of her biggest fans and groupies. They’re singing along with every word, jumping up and down and screaming with every shake of her hips or bob of her head. For her part, she’s ecstatic because she knows that somewhere in the VIP area is her husband, and he’s watching her (she might have worn a black shirt just a little more low cut because she loves the way his eyes darken whenever she shows cleavage in black). She had insisted on the VIP area at the behest of her husband, who was naturally afraid that his six-foot five, perpetually plaid clad frame would stand out in the crowds of gay men and badass punk women that usually attended her shows (she could care less about actual VIPS; in fact she told the ushers that they were to use their judgement to let anyone in who seemed like they were kind and discreet and needed a quieter spot to listen to her music). Blake and her had just seen each other for the first time in a month and a half the night before, and they’d had frankly phenomenal though quiet sex the night before (the boys were asleep upstairs and Gwen had had to bite on his shoulder to stop her moans when Blake had slammed into her against the wall, she practically climbing him like a tree and her nails drawing marks down his back; he’d woken up with a nasty bite on his shoulder blade and purpling bruises down his chest) but she was looking forward to that night after the show. The boys were with her parents, and she’d already had planned some long slow shower sex before pushing him on the bed and making him come at least twice before she came again herself. She was looking forward to loud and bracing, not being able to keep quiet and being okay with it. The sex was always great when they hadn’t seen each other in awhile (honestly it was great no matter what), but she was looking forward to hearing him make that broken high pitched whimper he made only when she’d gotten him totally fucked out.

 

He’d kissed her with too much tongue and too much want right before she went on stage, his hand curling over her hip and his eyes bright and happy (she’d missed him too much; she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to tour again for awhile; it was too hard for him and their kids). 

 

It’s then that it happens. She’s mid-strut, shaking her hips, when all of a sudden a sharp and searing pain lances through her lower stomach. She falters for a minute but tries to keep singing (though anyone who paid attention would hear the hitch in her breath). It happens again but ten times worse, and she inadvertently cries out. She hears the audience go a little quieter before her ears start ringing. She’s dizzy, she feels something wet trickling down her legs, she sees stars as her knees buckle and then nothing as she succumbs to blackness. 

 

(If she’d been awake, she would have seen the crowd gasp. She would have seen Blake’s wide stare from up at the VIP area before he paled and nearly sprinted downstairs, the normally unfailingly polite to fans singer shoving people aside carelessly as he ran onto the stage. She would have seen him try to push the medics away before finally collapsing on his knees next to her head, stroking her hair and telling her everything was going to be alright while frantically asking the medics what was wrong. She would have seen them try load her onto a gurney with him supporting her head, his fingers stroking the sides of her temples and his eyes watering. She would have seen him glare the ambulance driver into submission when the young woman told him that it typically wasn’t policy for them to let anyone else in the car. Finally, she would have seen him press up against the glass doors of the emergency room, pacing back and forth despite being told to sit down by a nurse.) 

 

It’s an untellable amount of time later when Gwen wakes up. She hears a rhythmic beep next to hear ear, and her nose scrunches. The first thing that hits her his confusion; the second is a dull pain lancing its way through her abdomen. She must have whimpered, because she feels the warm callused hands of her husband falter from where they were stroking her wrists (for how long she doesn’t know but she later finds out that it was almost twelve hours throughout the night). He leans over her then, the bags under his eyes and his tearstained face a semi-clear blur before her. He smiles though, his smile worried but genuine.

 

“ Hi Darlin’ “, he says softly, his hand squeezing hers where it lay on the hospital bed. She tries to smile at him but it must have come out as more of a grimace, because his eyes furrow and he  clenches his jaw, his hand squeezing hers more tightly. She opens her mouth and coughs, and he immediately brings a small glass of water up to her lips, instructing her to sip slowly  through a straw he puts into her mouth. It’s only when she feels too full of water that she spits the straw out, opening her mouth to speak.

 

“ What happened?” The words come out whispered and croaky, and his smile falls a little as his eyes fill.

 

“ I told ‘em to wait to tell me until we could hear it together. I just gave ‘em consent to do whatever they needed to,” He says softly, his drawl prominent in the way it only is when he’s seriously emotionally compromised (he’s very much a Type B in some situations to her Type A

and this is one of those situations; if it were her she’d want a detailed scientific diagram of the exact procedures they were going to perform before she gave consent even if she didn't understand it). She nods in response to his words, crooking her finger at him a little. He gets the message and leans forward, his arms braced on the hospital bed, to kiss her softly, his lips salty from what she knows are tears. 

 

It’s then that the doctor comes in. She’s a small Indian woman with a no-nonsense face but kind eyes, and Gwen likes her immediately. Blake immediately straightens, sitting back in the chair next to her bed but keeping ahold of her hand. The doctor looks her up and down, nodding once.

 

“ Good morning Ms. Stefani,” she says, and Gwen furrows her brow.

 

“ What?” She begins, and she coughs again, waving Blake away when he he tries to give her more water, “ What time is it?” The doctor checks her watch.

 

“ Six thirty in the morning ma’am.  You’ve been out for almost twelve hours now.” Her eyes widened.

 

“ What happened?” She says softly, her thumb stroking over Blake’s. The doctor’s face gets stony and Gwen has a feeling of dread that she can’t explain.

 

“ What do you remember ma’am?” The doctor asks, and Gwen thinks.

 

“ I was singing and then all of a sudden there were these, these, pains at the bottom of my stomach and then I passed out,” Gwen looks to the doctor for confirmation and the doctor nods slightly, seeming to confirm her story.

 

“Well, Ms. Stefani, you came in with fairly severe injuries to your uterus….” the doctor keeps talking but Gwen is still stuck on that word uterus. She looks at Blake, and sees that he is too. The feeling of dread gets bigger. She tunes in again, “ and unfortunately you experienced a miscarriage. I’m so sorry for your loss,” The bottom drops out of Gwen’s stomach, and she feels Blake’s hand loosen on hers as he stares at the doctor with wide eyes.

 

“ A—A, what?” He asks finally after a couple of seconds of silence. The doctor looks at both of them.

 

“ Your wife experienced a miscarriage, sir.”  Gwen and Blake stare at each other. The doctor seems to understand. “ Did you know you were pregnant?” After a couple of seconds, Gwen finally shakes her head. Blake hasn’t moved. “ I’m so sorry ma’am. It looks like you were about six weeks along when the stress of a pregnancy on your body was too much.” Gwen unexpectedly feels her eyes fill with tears, and she swallows. Before she can get a word in edgewise, the doctor continues with her soft monotone voice. “ The damage to your uterus and ovaries was very severe, and we attempted to stop the bleeding. We were unfortunately unsuccessful. We had to perform a hysterectomy in order to stop the bleeding and get you stabilized.” And just like that, the bottom drops out of Gwen’s world again.

 

“ No more kids, “ she practically whispers, and she glances over at Blake. The expression on his face is pure devastation. It reminds her of that look he had on their very first first date, like things weren’t okay and he didn’t have faith they would be again. She remembers a discussion they had a month into their engagement, lying on a hammock on the front porch of (then) his ranch. He’d been running his fingers through her hair, her back against his chest, and she’d asked in a soft voice if he’d wanted more children. She still remembered his hand faltering, lifting her chin to look up at him. He’d told her that he had everything he wanted, that her (he’d used the words “soon to be their” with a hopeful look in his eye and her smiling face had made him more confident about using the possessive pronoun) children were enough for him. She’d asked him again, teasing him slightly that he hadn’t answered the question. He’d squeezed her arm and fidgeted slightly before admitting in a near whisper that he thought he was open to the idea if she was, but only if she was because he was still unsure. She’d responded after a minute that she’d always wanted a little girl, and he’d kissed her then, ending her words.

 

As she stares at Blake in the hospital bed his eyes mourning and sadness and their ability to have a little girl with his eyes and her smile gone forever, she firmly erases in her mind the little checkmark next to the mental box that said, ‘Not sure if he wants more kids” and put it in ‘Sure he wants more kids.’ After a painful moment, she erases it again and creates a new box which she checks with dread. ‘Sure he _wanted_ more kids.’

 


	2. I'll Love You For Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She cries five times that first month, and each time he's there to wrap his arms around her if she wants him to. She usually does, but sometimes she doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this chapter is a beast of an emotional roller coaster. I intended for this thing to be like 2000 words long, but almost 6000 words later and most of the day here we are. Thank you for all the kind comments everyone! Not to worry, the story gets happier after this chapter. Girl Scout's honor.
> 
> Again, I mean no disrespect to anyone who has suffered/is suffering from either a miscarriage or depression.

She cries five times that first month, and each time he’s there to wrap his arms around her if she wants him to. She usually does, but sometimes she doesn’t.

 

 **First.** She cries first about five minutes after the doctor at the hospital tells them the news. She doesn’t even realize she’s doing it, but suddenly Blake is there wiping his thumbs over her cheeks and gently (ever so gently, more gently than he’s ever treated her in his life and she liked it that way until now) half perches on the bed so he can wrap his arms around her shoulders. He’s careful to avoid her sore lower abdomen, and his touch is feather light as he kisses her forehead over and over again before kissing the tears from her face. It’s all she can do to sob then, huge wracking cries that shake her whole frame. 

 

She thinks of the night they must have conceived. The boys were with Gwen’s parents for the weekend, and he’d taken the red-eye out to Pittsburgh to see her. She’d been there at the tarmac of the private airport waiting for him, and she’d run into his arms like a teenager before throwing her legs around his waist and kissing the breath out of him. He’d been there to catch her, his arms braced like he knew what was coming. They’d made out like horny teenagers in the back of her car before he slammed her against the wall of her hotel room and they’d had embarrassingly loud sex all night. She realized at one point that she’d been forgetting her birth control, but she saw him so rarely and figured that it was fine. In fact, she’d completely forgotten about it when he’d reached for a condom and she’d stilled his hand, bringing his fingers up to her mouth and sucking on them before she told him she wanted to feel all of him. His eyes had darkened and he’d emitted that broken whimper. 

 

He shushes her through her tears that day on the hospital bed and whispers drawled endearments in her ear as she mourns what she didn't even know she had. She thinks for the first time of a small girl with Blake’s riotous curls, her mouth open in laughter and Apollo chasing her across the backyard of the ranch. She thinks of Blake calling her ‘his little princess,’ and Gwen reminding him that their girl could be a superhero or a police officer or anything she wanted to be. She thinks of Blake winking at her, giving her a kiss that promised sweet sensuality later and telling her that who knows, their little girl could even be the front woman of a popular ska rock band. Not long after she stops sobbing in his arms in the hospital bed and is instead staring off into the distance letting out hitching breaths, Apollo, Zuma and Kingston come running in, barely avoiding throwing themselves on the bed by Blake’s curt, “watch it” that sends them skidding to a stop with wide eyes at the border of her bed. Blake stands up then, gently yet firmly explaining to each of them that Mama is sick right now and that the sickness is on her stomach, so they can’t give her their usual bear hugs or semi-tackles. He tells them that they have to be very very careful with her. It’s Zuma that comes up to her first, touching her arm with a soft hand and kissing her. His, “glad you’re okay Mama,” almost makes her cry again, but she blink’s against it and smiles at her middle son. Blake stands by her bed, his hand in hers, and is dry eyed.

 

 **Second.** The second time she cries its a random Tuesday two weeks later. All three boys are with Gavin for a change, and she’s resting on their massive leather couch in their sitting room in L.A. She’s checking her laptop, responding to tweets from fans and emailing her agent about her updated press release on her health. She’s almost healed from the surgery, her stitches coming out the next day, but Blake had insisted she rest on the couch for at least an hour before they went to dinner. Blake’s in the kitchen, making her a cup of gingerbread tea. Absentmindedly, she finishes off her email and looks at her photos on her computer, contemplating posting one to Twitter as an added reassurance for fans that she’s okay. Despite hating their obsession with her sometimes, in the end she was grateful for them, and that had never been more true after this whole mess had happened. The day they’d come home from the hospital, the parking lot had been surrounded by paparazzi. Gwen had made to walk past them, ignoring them while shielding her face like she always did, but Blake had stepped in front of her and looked at them with haunted eyes. “ Please don’t,” he’d said with such sincerity it had taken her breath away. One of the paparazzo (it had seemed like she was the most experienced one because she was the oldest and had a coveted place at the front of the gaggle) had looked at him with her eyes wide. She didn’t blame them. Blake was always teasing and joking and laughing on camera, never sad or heart bracingly honest like he had been that day. The woman paparazzo had put her camera down, turning to her fellow cameramen and women and telling them in no uncertain terms to cut it out. She was obviously well respected, because before long almost all of them had left. The message from Blake had gone on Twitter later that day, and the response from fans had been extraordinarily positive. Talk of leaving them alone and respecting their privacy had been all the world had heard about them for almost a week after. In response, Gwen had been more than usually active on social media, reassuring people she was okay and that she appreciated their support. 

 

As she’s scrolling through the photos on her computer, she sees it. It’s a picture of Blake on the couch at the ranch in Oklahoma from almost a year and a half ago three months after they'd started dating, his feet up on the oak coffee table and his head thrown back (in a way that’d made her laugh hysterically when she’d seen it) as he slept. What gets her at that particular moment, however, is what his arms are wrapped around. On one side, Zuma was conked out next to him, his little boy head resting on Blake’s thigh. Kingston was on the other, his feet thrown up next to Zuma’s head and his head hanging off the arm of the couch in a way that he would complain about later. Apollo is in the center and Blake has both of his arms wrapped around him, his curly head buried in Blake’s chest and his arms around Blake’s neck (they’d been out to ride the horses since dawn and Blake had seriously underestimated how much work taking three little boys on a horseback ride would be even with Apollo on his own horse with him). She remembers watching them for almost an hour before Blake had woken up, his eyes blinking slowly and taking in the kids sacked in around him. He’d gotten a look so full of surprise and love in his eyes then even as he refused to move even an inch for fear of disturbing them. She’d smiled at him then, mouthing ‘ I love you,’ to him when he finally caught on that she was there. He’d bitten his lip and blushed in the way she found so endearing (still does) and mouthed it back. 

 

The memory hits her so fast that she can barely keep up with her emotions. One second she’s smiling at the sweetness of it, the next she’s sobbing brokenly into her hand because she’s picturing a little girl struggling up to the couch to join the cuddle pile. She hears a mug clank in the sink before he’s rushing out, freezing for just a millisecond when he sees her but wrapping her in his arms with a concerned expression, rocking her back and forth a little bit until she’s done crying and finally goes into a restless sleep. She sleeps for four hours, and he sits with her there in the same position, but never sleeps. She cries, but he doesn’t.

 

 **Third.** The third time she cries it’s related to their loss but not at the same time. It’s been almost two weeks since the last time she sobbed on the couch, and she feels like she’s getting better (as horrible as it is to say this, she feels like she’d be more depressed if she’d known she was pregnant or if she and Blake had been trying, although she’s upset and she will be for awhile she knows that this won’t break her the way it breaks some people). Blake’s just gotten home from a small gig he agreed to perform in L.A. (only after she practically forced him to leave; he’d cancelled his tour immediately after she got home from the hospital and had been practically glued to her side since then). She’s staying home, tidying the house a little and getting some work done. Mostly, though, she wanted to stay home to plan this for him. She’s laying on the bed right when she knows he’s about to get home, adjusting her black nightgown. It’s semi-sheer, leaving just enough to the imagination yet still being sexy at the same time. Her hair is down (a look she knows he loves) and her lips are red. 

 

She hears him open the door and hears his feet on the stairs, his tread tired. She grins a little out of the corner of her mouth; she’ll wake him up quickly as soon as he sees her (she remembers the first time she dressed in black and red for him on a night like this; his mouth had dropped open and he’d started to touch her before pulling back a little like he didn’t think he was allowed. She’d grabbed his hand and put it on her ass, her hand coming to rub over his crotch and his breath had hitched before he’d lifted her up and made love to her for hours while kissing her almost nonstop). 

 

He stops when he sees her in the doorway. He’s covered in sweat (the auditorium obviously hadn’t had a shower in his dressing room otherwise she knows he would have taken one) and his hair is curling around his ears in a way she loves. She licks her lips, looking him up and down with that same grin (and she cant wait to lick the salt off his skin for the first time in almost a month now that the doctor says its okay). As she gets to his face, his eyes wipe the smile off of her face. They’re still empty, that dead look that she first saw during her first season on the show and again during the blind auditions and again in her hospital bed still there. He smiles (not his real smile, his fake bland one that means he’s upset but trying to pretend not to be) and says softly, “ You should be restin’ darlin’.” Her mouth falls open. Shaking her head a little, she tries again.

 

“ The doctor said it would be okay,” she murmurs, biting her lip and bringing her head to her neck, lilting her head back with a little whimpering breath (before that movement of her neck had gotten him instantly hard and it would be less than ten seconds before he was kissing the breath out of her). Instead, he shakes his head a little, stepping into the bathroom and speaking through the half open door. 

 

“ It’s not safe.” Her eyes fill as he continues, “ Fuck i’m exhausted,” he turns on the shower then, and she manages to get out another phrase before the tears threaten to overwhelm her.

 

“ W-why,” her voice trembles a little before she can help it, but he doesn’t seem to notice, “ Why don’t I make you a cup of tea?” He’s been so good about not drinking as much after she’d told him one night not long into their relationship that it bothered her. She stands up then, not waiting to hear his affirmation or denial. She makes her way quickly downstairs, snagging a makeup wipe from her vanity on the way down and wiping at the face it had taken her an hour to do. She gets off all of the red lipstick by the time she’s downstairs. When the sobs come as she leans over the kitchen sink, she’s not surprised. She tries to muffle them as best she can, but the tears are still streaming when she feels him come up behind her and wrap his arms around her. As she turns almost unconsciously and buries her face in his neck, it’s enough and not at all. It’s what she wanted and yet its not the feeling of him coming apart under her hands or her feeling like Blake couldn’t get enough of her like he always had. She cries again and again, and again and again his eyes are dry and devastated. He kisses her forehead chastely, and the gesture which had once sent goosebumps through her now feels like a reproach.

 

 **Fourth.** She cries for the fourth time after she notices he starts drinking more. The bottle of Bacardi that until then had remained practically untouched for months now disappears at a much faster pace. He goes out with his country friends when they’re in L.A. for a boy’s night and doesn’t come back until late (early) that night. As he climbs into bed, even after showering (and she’s pretending to be asleep) he smells like stale booze and cigarette smoke.

 

If it was just once, Gwen could laugh it off as a random party event (everyone got drunk once in awhile at parties). However, he starts spending more time with those friends of his that she knows bring out the worst in him; he starts flying down to Nashville for boys’ weekends and going camping with a group of guys that he knows Gwen doesn’t like (don’t get her wrong, she genuinely loves most of Blake’s friends especially Luke and Kelly because they’re kind and open-minded and genuine but there are a few of his “friends” that she doesn’t like, mostly because they’re racist and homophobic and bigoted and the type of Christian she never ever wants to be. They’re the type that laugh at the fact that Zuma sometimes dresses a little effeminately sometimes—both of them had encouraged him to dress in a way that made him feel the most like himself, however that was, but they both knew they were going to be having a conversation with him about his sexuality in a couple of years and they wanted him to feel accepted— or that Kingston loves cuddles and kisses even as he’s a tomboy. They’re the types that make “fag” jokes and smoke too many cigarettes and tease Blake into embarrassment for any emotion he shows. It’s these types of people that Blake’s hanging out with lately that’s the reason Gwen hated country music for so long, until she had learned that not everyone in country was like that and that there were genuine true people in amongst all of the closed-mindedness.) 

 

He also still hasn’t touched her in any remotely sexual way. It’s been almost a month. Other than their tours, they’re usually an extremely sensual and sexual couple, having sex at least four times a week if not more. It’s the best way they know to express their depth of affection for one another; both not prone to open displays and flowery speech unless special occasions were involved (like their engagement). Plus, Blake is the best lover she’d ever had in her twenty-plus years of having sex, and she knows she’s the best for him too (he never says it but the way he held her sometimes felt like desperation and pure devotion, like he couldn’t believe he’d been so lucky). She misses hearing his broken whimper and his low groan, she misses the feeling of his cock inside of her hitting her g-spot without mercy and the taste of his come on her lips. She misses his somewhat artless tongue kisses when they’re in the throes and the way he leaves bite marks on her body. She misses leaving purple bruises down his neck for him to show off later, a little proud. She misses his hand on her ass in public and her hands in his hair as they watch T.V., him practically purring and falling asleep in her lap.

 

It’s one of those nights, the “out with the boys” nights when she knows he should have been home an hour ago, when she can’t sleep and the kids are with Gavin and when she just wants her husband to touch her. She brushes her hair and puts on a smile as she sees his car pull up in the driveway. He steps out a little wobbly, and her smile falls. He’s drunk. He’s fucking drunk and he drove home. She’s going to kill him.

 

She hears his unsteady gait make its way up the stairs before she sees him. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks relaxed yet coiled like a spring at the same time. He looks at her and his eyes betray nothing before he starts to unbutton his shirt and get ready for bed.

 

“ Did you drive home?” Her voice is flat, but she knows he can hear the anger in it. He turns to her and crooks an eyebrow.

 

“ Why you ask these things if ya know already? You saw my car in the drive,” he drawls, his words a little slurred. She knows his alcohol tolerance has decreased rapidly over the past year and a half with her despite his size, and she wonders how much he had. She crosses her arms. 

 

“ Blake,” her voice is icy as he rifles through their wardrobe, “ You mean to tell me that you drove home _in your car_ when you were _drunk off your ass_.” The sentence is more a statement than a question. He ignores her. She continues, “ That is the dumbest motherfucking thing you have ever done,” Her voice gets louder, “ You could have hurt someone! Not to mention getting yourself killed!” He throws up his hands.

 

“ Everyone else was drunk too? What was I gonna do?!” He’s shouting now. She stands up, no shrinking violet who’s going to take this from her man.

 

“ Take a fucking cab like any sane person!” She shouts. He paces then, refusing to look at her.

 

“ Well I guess I just can’t fucking do anything right?!?!” He shouts back. She stands in front of him, and she can practically smell the rum oozing out of his pores.

 

“ Not when it means putting the fucking father of my children in danger!!” She yells back. They’re matched temper for temper now, strength for strength (that’s one of the things he told her he loved about her was how strong she was and that she didn’t want to be anyone’s good little wife, but she thinks he’d rather she be a meek fairy princess now that they’re shouting in each other’s faces). 

 

“ I’m not the father of your fucking children Gwen, and I won’t ever be will I!?!?!?!” He nearly screams. She flinches back like she’s been slapped, and her mouth opens and her eyes fill with tears. She’s in total shock. For his part, the minute he says it he looks like he’s never regretted anything more, and his eyes clear from the alcohol induced haze.  “Gwen…” he starts softly, but she puts her hands up. He tries to wrap his arms around her, but she breaks away.

 

“ Shut the fuck up,” She says firmly but quietly, and he does. She moves then, grabbing a jacket, some slip on tennis shoes, her glasses. He follows her like a kicked puppy as she makes her way downstairs, silent tears streaming down her face that she wipes at angrily every once in awhile. She grabs her keys from where they’re hanging next to his and turns to look at him. He tries to touch her, and she slaps his hands away, slipping her phone in her pocket. “Don’t touch me, “ she kisses, and he flinches away from her. “ Blake, I lost something too. You don’t think I thought about what it would be like to have a baby with you? “ The words are half broken and hissed in the night, “ You don't  think I think about what we’d name a little girl or how much you’d love her? Guess what, I do. I think about it every fucking day. The difference is, i’m dealing with it. I’m moving on and getting on with my life. You’re not dealing with it at all!” She watches his face get hurt with every sentence she says, “ You’re finding your relief at the bottom of the bottle with your bigoted fucking redneck friends.  Well those of us in the real world deal with our problems rather than ignoring them. When you’re ready to be a father to my kids again and a family, let me know.” She slams the door on her way out, only breaking out into sobs when she’s a block away from their house on a deserted side street. She cries and cries, and thinks about the fact that despite their fight, despite his hurtful words (and hers), he still hadn’t cried. 

 

As she knocks (well more like pounds) on Adam’s door at almost 3 in the morning (he’d been the one who she knew was in L.A. and despite his loyalty to Blake she and him had gotten very close since Blake and Gwen had gotten together and she knows Adam knows Blake better than almost anyone and knows his bullshit and he also knows better than anyone what they’ve been going through the past month) and he and Behati answer it with worn t-shirts and pajama pants and sleep rumpled hair, she wonders whether this is the end of the best couple of years of her life. As she sobs in Adams arms while Behati rubs her feet and Charlie tries to lick her face she thinks that for the first time in a long time she isn’t sure what the future holds.

 

 **Fifth.** She cries five times that first month, and each time he’s there to wrap his arms around her if she wants him to. She usually does, but sometimes she doesn’t.

 

It’s two days before Gwen makes herself go back home. After Gwen had cried herself almost to sleep, Adam had gently set her head in Behati’s lap before grabbing his keys, his pajama pants still on and low on his hips, his feet bare except for a pair of worn flip flops, and going to, in his words, “Kick some country ass.”  She finds nothing out about what went on except the next morning Adam tells her she’s welcome to stay at his house as long as she needs. She calls Gavin and the kids and asks if Gavin can keep them for a week while both she and Blake were sick with the stomach flu (there’s no way in hell she’s telling them about their fight because the boys would get mopey like they used to and Gavin would be smug). She spends two days loving on Adam and Behati’s dogs and watching crappy reality TV with Behati. Both of them do anything they can to make her laugh, and it works sometimes. 

 

Eventually though, Gwen realizes she needs to face her world. She turns on her phone to be met with about twenty voicemails and fifty texts all from Blake, ranging in tone but all expressing the sentiment _sorry._ She’d gotten one alert that he’d tweeted (they’d set up alerts for their twitters at Gwen’s insistence when he’d taken a picture of her sleeping in their bed and posted it with the heading _its a beautiful morning_ , sheets rumpled but pulled up to cover her chest and any other inappropriate parts but undoubtedly naked. She hadn’t minded so much—even she knew she was hot— but she’d told him laughingly that if he was going to post pictures of her that would send the fans into apoplexy she at least deserved to know about it). His tweet read _its hard to say you're sorry when the word isn't enough._

 

Sighing, she decides she will deal with her phone later. Quickly, though, she sends a text to Blake, ignoring all of them that he sent her. **I’m coming home today.** (the text is suspiciously absent of her emoticon faces and words of love that their texts usually contains, his _ok_ back isn't exactly reassuring about the future of their relationship).As she pulls up to their house fifteen minutes later, there are a few lights on. She pulls her purse out of her car, punches in the code for the door, and steps inside.

 

He’s sitting at the stools on the kitchen counter, facing the front doorway so he can see her. What strikes her most though, is the way he looks. He’s showered, that much is obvious, but other than that he looks like an unmade bed. Too loose clothing (she recognizes the overly baggy sweater his grandma knitted him when he was twenty that he wears when he needs comfort), unkempt wild curls, a hint of stubble on his face, and bags under his eyes as big as she’d ever seen them. His jaw is clenching and his fingertips are pressing and releasing against the granite of the kitchen counter. His shoulders are slouched down so he looks smaller (and she never thought that was possible for a six foot-five man). It strikes her then, looking at him in their kitchen with regretful eyes and a grief-stricken countenance, that he’s been all alone while she’s had comfort. She knows for a fact Luke and Kelly and Carson are all out of town, and Adam has been with her (Although he has a lot of casual friends he’s got very few real ones and she knows he wouldn’t go to his hillbilly buddies for this issue; in fact he’d probably go to Adam if she hadn’t taken Adam away from Blake). She holds no delusions that this is all his fault; she knows she said some hurtful things and that he deals with his grief in a different way, but she feels stabs of remorse at the fact that he’d obviously had no one to turn to. It shows. He’s looking at her like she’s his sun that he’s put out and that he expects to be crushed by the force of her anger and he’ll take it because he feels that he deserves it (most people underestimated how self-loathing Blake could be sometimes and she knows that in this instance she did too). 

 

“Hi,” he croaks, his drawl heavy and his voice hoarse. She looks him over again before walking over to him and putting her arms around him, giving him a tight but brief hug. He stiffens, like this was the last thing he expected, before wrapping his arms around her tentatively. He sniffs at her hair like its the last thing he’s allowed (and she wants nothing more than for him to bury his face in her neck like he loves to do but he doesn’t, not this time). He starts to speak. “ Gwen, I…” She shushes him, a fingertip pressed to his lips.

 

“ Let’s not talk about it now okay?” Her voice is ever so slightly tense and he nods, eyes wide ( she thinks she could probably ask him to sell the ranch in Oklahoma—never mind that she would never do that because she loves it— and he would do it, that’s how desperate he seems to please her). “ I’m going to go unpack and then lets have dinner.” She walks upstairs then, feeling his eyes follow her. As she hits the first landing, she notices something.

 

“ Blake?” He’s over in her eyesight in an instant (she’d swear he’d run over to her, and her heart breaks a little more). 

 

“ What is it?” He asks urgently, like he’d help her in any way he could if she’d just tell him what it was.

 

“ Where’s the liquor cabinet?” She’s referring to their large wooden cabinet that was a gift from a friend on the day of their wedding. It usually sat on the front landing, acting as both a liquor cabinet and table space for anything the boys needed to take with them before they left for school. It had been filled with bottles upon bottles of expensive booze, wine, and other spirits (less now though since Blake had started drinking a lot again and Gwen didn’t want to go down that road at this moment). Blake shuffles in response her question, his neck reddening and his eyes looking anywhere but her.

 

“ I got rid’a it,” He drawls so lowly that almost can’t hear. He brow furrows.

 

“ Why?” The question seems to sting him and she watches as he stuffs his hands inside his pockets, his fingers clenching.

 

“ Cuz i’m quittin’, no more.” He says ever so softly. Her mouth drops open. She’d never asked him to quit drinking entirely, just to pull back for the sake of their family. For him to make this kind of gesture, well, she’s stunned. 

 

“ Blake, “ she starts, “ you didn't have to do that.” He flinches then, ducking his head further.

 

“ Sorry,” he mutters, making to leave. Her voice stopped him.

 

“ Wait!” He stops then but doesn’t turn around. She skips down the stairs to the step above where he is, lifting his chin. His eyes are empty and hurt. She smiles a little and watches as his eyes track the movements. “ Thank you,” she whispers to him. She kisses him then on the cheek, a brief chaste peck, but she might as well have given him a blowjob with the look on his face. “ I love you,” She said softly, and turned before he could say it back to go upstairs.

 

They endure a tense dinner and tense watching T.V. in the living room before going to bed. He stands by the side of the bed and looks at her until she crooks an eyebrow, and only then does he get in, turning his back to her and huddling down against himself. She sighs, and eventually drops into a restless sleep, the space between them like a chasm in the darkness.

 

It has to be at least two in the morning when she wakes up again for a reason she can’t explain. The house is pitch black. She turns a little restlessly to see what it was and notices Blake isn’t in bed. That’s when she hears it. Its quiet, trying to be muffles by something, but it almost sounds like an animal being killed. She stands up, furrowing her brow, and notices that the bathroom light is on and the sound seems to be coming from there. She opens the shut door and she’s never been more stunned. 

 

Blake is sitting on the floor with his knees folded up under him against their large soaking tub. He’s in his pajamas, hair mussed, feet bare, and he looks like he hasn’t slept at all. What makes her own eyes fill, though, is the fact that it’s him making those noises like an animal in pain. He’s sobbing. Not just the few tears she’s seen him shed when he was especially overwhelmed (like on their engagement night, when Apollo called him Papa) but real, heaving, make yourself sick sobs. His whole body is shaking like a leaf, and he’s burying his face in his hands. 

 

It’s a testament to how far gone he is that he doesn’t even notice her come in or walk up to him until she’s kneeling next to him, wrapping her arms around his heaving frame. He stiffens then, trying to pull out of her grasp but still sobbing like he can’t stop. She holds him to her through his struggling, forcing him to look at her through a firm hand on his chin. He tries to speak, tries to open his mouth through his red face and pouring tears, but all he can do is cry. She makes a decision then and sits so she’s more comfortable, practically shoving his face in his favorite spot on her neck (that spot he always goes to for comfort) and squeezing him with all the strength that her body allows.

 

Time passes in a vacuum for them, sitting on the floor of the bathroom, Gwen freezing cold but not willing to move one muscle. She’d tried to shift at one point, but he’d let out a pitiful whimper and squeezed her tighter, practically giving her bruises on her ribs as he cried. It had to have been at least a half hour before his sobs taper off into small hitches. He noses into her neck, taking shaking breaths in and out and sounding a little like he's going to hyperventilate. For her part, she’s rubbing circles in his hair and on his back, making shushing noises under her breath.

 

It’s at least five minutes later between when he stops sobbing before he speaks, “ We lost our baby, “ He croaks. Her own eyes fill.

 

“ We did, “ She murmurs through her tears. They sit and cry together there on the bathroom floor.  Eventually, Gwen speaks.

 

“ Is that why the drinking?” She asks softly, and he flinches a little like he still expects her to come after him. He nuzzles into her neck for a minute before speaking.

 

“ I, “ he takes a hitching breath, “ thought if i could drink enough I could take the pain away and be strong enough for ‘ya,” He murmurs. Thats one of the most emotional expressions she’s ever heard from him, and her fingers tighten in his hair. She rocks them back and forth a little before cupping his cheeks and pulling his gaze up to meet hers. 

 

“ You,” she emphasizes, stroking her thumbs over his face, “ Don’t always have to be strong.” She emphasizes each word with a stroke down his face. She looks at him then. His face is puffy and red from crying for hours, there are tear tracks down his face. His nose is running and his chin is still trembling. To anyone else, he would be ugly in that moment. Anyone else would wait until he composed himself before getting closer. To Gwen, however, his vulnerability was a flawed but crucial part of the man she loved. She looks at him for a couple more seconds before kissing him deeply, causing him to let out a huff of surprise before kissing her back desperately. A couple minutes later, during their first proper make out in a month, it hits her that he's murmuring into her lips.

 

“Im sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn't mean it I’m sorry,” He's murmuring over and over. She breaks them apart, a string of saliva separating their lips. She cups his cheeks again and looks into his eyes.

 

“ I forgive you, and I love you,” She says firmly, and his eyes flutter shut before he’s kissing her again with more desperation.They make their way to bed and end up with his head on her breast and his arms around her waist. She doesn’t mind, and they sleep like the dead for eight more hours.

 

The next morning she’s woken up by him licking her open with his tongue, her knees around his ears. She moans then, happy and bright, and he smiles (with a hint of the good real smile there she can tell time will heal their wounds) before bringing her to orgasm in thirty seconds flat. Before he can do what he usually does when he feels like he has to please her (which is make her come at least twice before seeking his own please), she manhandles him up and fucking into her at a rapid and surefire pace. The sex is over too quickly and it’s loud enough to rattle the walls, but she feels the tension leave his frame as he groans through his orgasm. As he spoons up behind her, nibbling on her earlobe, she knows what the future of their relationship is. It’s forever.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How Gwen feels about country music is how I felt about country music for a long time (and to some extent it's still how I feel about it). I'm learning to be more open-minded though, and realize that although stereotypes might be there for a reason that doesn't mean everyone in a particular musical genre is like that stereotype. Yahoo for personal growth!


	3. As Long As I'm Living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake's grief is circular. It's there, dies down, and comes around again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thanks for the great comments on this work! I really appreciate it. All authors out there, please write more! There was not enough Shefani going on this week, and it made me mega sad. Let’s make some up, eh? (Although quite frankly I’m not surprised they’re laying low given what happened when they went out to dinner. That’s not to say I haven’t stalked the pictures… don’t mind me, i’ll just be over here. ^_^ *whistles*)

Blake’s grief (which takes longer to abate than Gwen’s does and even though she was expecting it because of how long he pushes it aside with booze and a misguided since of protective masculinity) is circular. The grief is there, dies down, and comes around again.

 

The first few days after she found him sobbing on the bathroom floor are still a little tense. Despite the fact that they’ve forgiven each other, despite the fact that they have their intimacy back as well as his real smile, they can’t erase what they said to one another. But Gwen knows he’s trying to be better; she does. But, his grief is still raw. 

 

A week after she finds him in the bathroom in the middle of the night, she’s sitting on their couch watching some mindless T.V. show. He’s supposedly upstairs working on a press release for the upcoming Grammy awards, however she hears his heavy tread down the stairs before too long. Without a word, he appears in their living room. She smiles at him but he doesn’t smile back, and his eyes are haunted. He doesn’t say anything, but instead half-collapses on the couch, nudging his face into her stomach and pulling her arm around him. Her heart breaks a little when she hears soft muffled sniffles and her shirt starts to become damp. She cards one hand’s fingers through his hair and the other up and down his back. Less than two minutes later, he pulls away, ducking his head off to the side a little and self-consciously wiping his eyes. She waits for him to look at her. He does, finally, and she kisses his forehead where he loves to kiss hers. She pulls his head to rest against her lap, feet curled under him across the couch, and she starts to scratch her nails into his scalp. Within minutes, he’s asleep.

 

He comes to her one more time  those first couple off weeks after their fight,  fighting back tears and losing the battle. Zuma comes into the living room mid sniffle (it’s way past his bed time but he seems to have this sense for when people are upset; it’s one Gwen will never understand but will always love about her quiet perceptive little boy) and pokes Blake on the shoulder despite Gwen’s frantic gestures to the contrary. Blake lifts his head and widens his eyes when he sees Zuma, quickly ducking his head and wiping at his face. Zuma pulls his hands away from his face from where Blake is seated on the couch, and hugs him tightly. Zuma gently whispers, “ It’ll be alright Papa,” and Blake’s eyes widen. Gwen thinks for a moment he’s going to cry again before the sentence seems to help him and he hugs Zuma tightly back.

 

“ With you here, ‘course it will,” Blake murmurs lowly, almost too softly for Gwen to hear (but hear she does and the phrase fills her heart with happiness). Zuma breaks away then, softly asking Blake if he might have a cup of cocoa before bed. Blake nods, taking Zuma by the hand to the kitchen. His eyes are dry and smiling.

 

His grief seems to abate for awhile, and she begins to see how diligently he is keeping the promises he made to her on the night of their terrible fight.

 

He keeps true to his promise to stop drinking. They’d gone out with Adam and Behati and their jaws had nearly hit the floor when Blake had ordered Coke instead of a drink. Adam had opened his mouth to say something and Gwen had kicked him hard under the table with her heeled boot, shaking her head minutely when he jumped and glared at her (she knew that bringing the fact that Blake quit drinking up was ten times worse for him than just ignoring it). At Gwen’s glare and head shake, Adam had seemed to understand, because he himself had stopped at one drink and drank sparkling water with them the rest of the night. Gwen loved how the lack of alcoholic fog made his blue eyes glow. She’d ridden him in their bed that night with his wrists held up over his head, and she’d murmured his name into the air like a benediction when they’d come at the same time.

 

She didn’t ask him to promise this, but he begins to be more careful about who he associates with. The next time his hillbilly buddies (as she’s taken to calling those friends of his she doesn’t like) call him up and invite him to go drinking with them, he says he’d rather not. Gwen watches, stunned, from her place on the couch as they force him on FaceTime. They start to make a joke about him being too much of a “Hollywood fag” to hang out with them and he utters one ice filled sentence. “ Shut the fuck up. Don’t use that fucking word in front of me.” They’re stunned for a moment on FaceTime, their faces crowded on the video monitor. He rings off with a feeble excuse not long after, and sits down back next to her with a sign. She runs her nails through his hair and he groans, and before long he’s got his face buried in her shoulder and is snoring softly. His hillbilly friends call him twice more in the next month, and he ignores them. Eventually, they stop calling.

 

Despite his forward steps (and their forward steps), his grief is still there though, simmering slowly beneath the surface. She sees it come out every once in awhile, like when he nuzzles into her on the couch seeking comfort or when he plays an angry song on his guitar. 

 

She sees Blake’s long-term grief come through most strongly, however, when Adam and Behati have their daughter. (They’d been overjoyed for their friends when they’d been told—both Adam and Behati had chosen to ignore Gwen and Blake’s slightly sad smile at each other and the squeeze of their hands together under the table—and Gwen had talked Behati through all of the troubles of pregnancy. Gwen helped her find just the right kind of orange juice that didn’t make her heave and gave her tips on how to sleep so she didn't kill her back by morning). The call comes one morning they’re both still in bed, and Gwen puts it on speaker phone just so she and Blake can congratulate their best friends on becoming parents. They promise to stop by next week when everyone has had a chance to calm down, and ring off. Gwen stares at Blake with tears in her eyes and Blake strokes her face with his fingers. They lay like that for half an hour, just looking at each other and acknowledging what might have been.

 

The next week, they go to visit their friends. Blake catches Adam up in a bear hug, Charlie and Bones barking around them until Gwen pets them with a laugh. He leads them to the nursery, where Behati is sitting in a rocking chair holding a tiny bundle. They both smile at her and kiss her cheek and with a look from Gwen Behati is handing the baby to Blake. 

 

Blake takes her with reverent arms while Gwen watches. She watches how he gently rocks her so she doesn’t cry, watches how he smiles down at her with a gentle smile, watches how his eyes are too bright blue to be dry. He softly strokes her with one finger and her little hand latches onto it. Gwen thinks at how absolutely perfect and simultaneously heartbreaking the scene is.

 

Blake is enamored with the baby for at least another half hour. He asks Behati bashfully (which makes both Adam and Gwen raise their eyebrows because Blake has never done anything bashful in his life) if he might feed the baby her bottle. Behati readily agrees, and its when Blake is gently sticking the bottle into the baby’s mouth while Behati watches that Adam motions with his head towards the kitchen to Gwen and Gwen follows. They stand at Adam’s kitchen island and Adam hands her a bottle of water before he takes his own. They sip slowly. Gwen peels a little at the label of hers, finally speaking.

 

“ Adam, i’m seriously so happy for you.” She smiles up at him (a little sadly) and he beams back.  He yawns, shaking his head a little to clear the cobwebs.

 

“ I didn’t even think it was possible to be this tired,” He groans a little, stretching his neck. She huffs out a laugh.

 

“ It gets easier as time goes on. Or maybe you just stop needing sleep, after number three I don’t really know.” She jokes, and he laughs a little. Adam then goes quiet, which immediately raises Gwen’s hackles (because Adam is many things but quiet he’s never been). Adam fidgets on one foot than the other, looking down at the ground.

 

“ Look, Gwen, I really am sorry,” she knows immediately what he’s talking about and she smiles sadly, patting his arm.

 

“ I know,” She says softly. They stand for a moment, silent.

 

“ I…” Adam begins, and his voice is quiet and young in the way that it gets sometimes, “ I sometimes feel guilty.” Gwen tilts her head in confusion. “ When Behati first got pregnant, I mean we weren’t even trying, and…. I almost wished that it hadn’t happened. I was, I don’t know, so damn scared.” Adam practically rushes out the words, and Gwen stares at him patiently, waiting for him to go on. “ And then I think about you both, and how _much_ you want it, and I feel bad that I didn’t want it for even one second.” Gwen is stunned yet at the same time not really. That’s one of the things she loves about Adam, the fact that he can be as mature as a five-year old one minute and then say something so soulful when you least expect it in the next. All Gwen can do is hug him a little tearfully. They break apart, and she looks at him.

 

“ You just be happy with your little bundle in there, okay?” Adam quirks an eyebrow, maturity apparently done.

 

“ You mean Behati, or the baby?” He jokes, and Gwen laughs, socking him on the arm.

 

“ You know what I meant, doofus.” He gets serious again.

 

“ But seriously Gwen, have you ever thought about adoption?” The question throws her, although the subject has run through her mind.

 

“ I’ve thought about bringing it up, but he still seems so sad Adam, I just don’t know, “ She says softly, “ I think about that night we had that terrible fight, and I just don’t want that again.” She finishes at a near whisper. 

 

“ It’s just, Gwen,” She looks up at him at her name, “ I know he loves his stepsons, God knows he shows me enough damn pictures of Apollo to last me a life time, not to mention the first time Kingston cantered a horse or the first song Zuma ever wrote. “ Gwen swats at him for the Apollo joke but smiles at him when he gets to the part about Zuma and Kingston. “ But i’ve never, ever, met anyone who _needs_ to be a father to a newborn baby like Blake. I mean, dude, did you see him in there? And not that he won’t be happy without one but the world _needs_ more dads like that,” She nods, picturing him in the nursery illuminated by moonlight with a soft warm smile on his face and a baby’s hand wrapped around his finger. She pictures how naturally he holds the baby, his deep inhales as he breathes in that intoxicating baby smell. “ He’s gotta have thought about it, I just don’t know if he knows how to bring it up.” Adam finishes. Gwen narrows her eyes.

 

“ Did he put you up to this?” Gwen asks.  Adam lifts his hands in the ‘surrender’ gesture.

 

“ No. He actually made me promise not to bring it up. He’s afraid you'll hate him,” Adam says softly. She swallows and sighs. Her husband and she are going to be having a long talk in the near future; she knows. She hopes it’ll end with them picking out adoption agencies. 

 

They go back into the nursery to find Blake softly crooning to the sleeping baby, while Behati sleeps sitting up in the rocking chair, her mouth open with drool coming out one side in a way not at all befitting a Victoria’s Secret model (and these moments of complete dork-ness are what make Adam and Behati such a great couple because Adam’s the biggest dork Gwen knows and she loves him for it). 

 

They leave not long after (Gwen makes excuses that they have meetings early the next morning but she knows Adam sees the pain in Blake’s eyes and the way he can’t stop touching her all night and the way he’s a little too quiet even when Adam is being his usual goofy silly self there in the nursery). Blake says nothing in the car, simply grabs onto her free hand the minute she starts the car and squeezes it between both of his the entire ride back, totally ignoring her when she tries to pull it free to make a particularly difficult turn. He doesn’t even seem to realize he’s doing it; just squeezes her hand and stares out the window. 

 

That night, Gwen rests her chin on his bare chest and asks him softly what he thinks about them looking at adoption agencies for a little girl. His mouth drops open wide and he stares at her for probably fifteen seconds before he clears his throat and says that he ‘ _thinks he would like that.’_ When she smiles at him he beams wide before telling her that he ‘ _thinks they should have a family meeting and ask the kids how they feel about a new little sister.’_ Gwen laughs, nods, and he flips her over, kissing the breath out of her. 

 

They lie in bed later with his arm around her, sitting up against the headboard, sweat cooling from their lovemaking, with bedroom hair and marks up and down their body. With one look from Blake, Gwen pulls out her iPad. Blake’s smile gets brighter and brighter with each adoption agency they research, and Gwen’s periodically squeezes one of his hands with one of hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) And today you get an Adam bonus! *Adam waves* Quite frankly, I think Adam is adorable, and so any fic where I can include him is aces in my book. :D. 
> 
> (2) On a lighter note, you won’t believe the number of times I had to go in and correct Behati’s name on my computer from where it had autocorrected (even though I tried to input it into my spell check function so it wouldn’t register as being a spelling mistake). Some of my personal favorites: Beehive, Behave, and my personal favorite, BillyBoop (you think i’m joking. I’m not).


	4. My Baby You'll Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ll love you forever, i’ll like you for always, as long as i’m living, my baby you’ll be. Juliette Isabel Shelton. God made her for us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the angst comes schmoop. So much schmoop I can’t even believe it. Your teeth might hurt from this, but hopefully you’ll be smiling! Thanks you all for reading! Tune back in a few days for another story (about what I don’t know). Comments are my bread and butter folks (because i’m insecure and I like knowing that i’m appreciated; it’s one of my faults sue me) so please please comment!

 

It’s not as easy as Gwen and Blake looking on her iPad. It’s only the beginning. There are forms upon forms upon forms, application upon application, huge application fee after huge application fee. There are hearings and meetings and people that have preconceived notions about them because of their celebrity. Sometime’s it’s frustrating. Sometimes Blake says that he feels like they're buying a house instead of adopting a child and sometimes Gwen gets angry at him for saying that and he has to apologize (with his tongue; many times. Or at least that had been what Gwen had told him, breathlessly teasingly, while in reality she had forgiven him as soon as she’d seen that anguished apologetic look on his face). Sometimes Gwen refuses to pick out a name for their future daughter because she doesn’t want to jinx the process by getting attached to a name and sometimes Blake has to (moping) look up names on his own, turning his back to her on the porch until she wraps her arms around him and nibbles on his earlobe (after the fourth nibble she agrees to develop a list of ten names and then pick from them when the time comes; as he sticks his tongue in her mouth he thinks that’s an acceptable compromise). Sometimes Apollo, Zuma, and Kingston would ask about when their new sister was coming and Kingston would start to explain sex and where babies come from (he’d gotten the talk recently at school even though Gwen had done it a long time ago) and Blake has to lift him up with a hand over his mouth before he fills the two younger’s ears with information they don’t need to know yet (all three of the oldest members of the household have laughter in their eyes as blake tickles Kingston into submission). But it’ll all be worth it. It has to be.

 

At the final stages of the process, while they’re only waiting for a phone call, Gwen develops a detailed contingency plan for what to do in the event they get the call. She packs a bag for both of them and an overnight bag for the boys so they can go to her parents if necessary; she prints a map to various hospitals around the L.A. area (and maps of major hospitals around most of the country) and a abbreviated shopping list of baby supplies they need to replace from when Apollo was little (Blake raises his eyebrows but catches her around the waist mid-organize to kiss her silly). Gwen plans for every eventuality, and they lie awake at night sometimes thinking about a little girl’s laughter and how comfortably she’d fit between them in bed as a toddler.

 

For all of her planning, the day it finally happens it’s totally unexpected. Although they’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting, they can’t put their entire lives on hold for a someday eventuality. That’s why Blake is in Illinois performing at a show(the show wasn’t until that night but he’d left this morning with a hickey on his shoulder and Gwen’s nail marks down his back; they may be married with kids but that didn’t mean their sex life wasn’t as adventurous as ever). The boys are with Gavin for the weekend (even Apollo this time) and Gwen is lying in their large soaker tub (when they’d gotten married they’d moved into Gwen’s house which Blake was perfectly ok with so long as they installed a tub large enough to fit him), bubbles surrounding her and the soft strains of Sara Vaughn in her ear through headphones connected to her phone. She sighs, stretching her toes on the bottom of the tub. Her plan is to lie in the tub until she’s properly wrinkly, then loll around for the day, with no commitments. She plans to sleep early that night with a glass of wine to ease her way and then go shopping with Behati before eagerly awaiting her husbands arrival back home. 

 

The call comes as she’s dozing a little bit. Without thinking, she picks it up, murmuring a mellow, “ Hello.” 

 

“ Gwen, it’s Edie,” The voice is out of breath a little. She smiles a little at hearing Blake’s sister on the other end.

 

“ Heya Edie how’s it going girl?” Edie is an OBGYN nurse in Arizona; she’s cheerful and mellow and easygoing with nerves of pure steel and Gwen and her had always gotten along like a house on fire.

 

“ I have a baby for you. You have to come to Arizona right the hell now.” Gwen shakes her head a little.

 

“ W-What?” Gwen thinks she heard Edie wrong.

 

“ A young teenager just had a baby girl at Scottsdale General, and she wants the mother to be someone she knows. I’ve helped this girl through her whole pregnancy, and I told her about you and she wants to meet you to potentially let you adopt her baby.” Gwen sits up straight and lets out what anyone else would call a dolphin-like squeal. She flails her hands, knocking her (thankfully plastic) glass of mineral water to the ground and accidentally dropping her phone in the tub.

 

“ Shit!!!!” Gwen says, fishing out her phone and drying it off. Thanks to her tendency to flail she luckily had a waterproof case on this time; it survived. “ OH MY GOD EDIE ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?!!” She screeches, bubbles clinging to half of her body and her hair plastered to one side of her head.

 

“ I AM SO SERIOUS GWEN,” Edie shouts back just as loud if not less squeaky, “ So get your ASS on an airplane and come down here; the adoption people here at the hospital will only let me keep the mother and baby for another four hours without getting involved.” Edie hangs up then and Gwen scrambles out of the tub, running through the house, totally naked, trailing soap strewn bubbles on the floor. She FaceTimes Blake as she’s running down their stairs, catching herself before she slips on the marble. Blake picks up, obviously backstage at his concert hall with a few people around him. 

 

“ Hiya Darl—HOLY FUCK!” He ducks down with the phone behind what looks like a large speaker when he sees her totally naked body on FaceTime. His own face is bright red. “Gwen what the hell are you doing?!?!?! I’m in the middle of an auditorium full of people!” She’s still running through the house, picking up their bag and getting on her laptop, trying to arrange something with a private jet company. 

 

“ WE HAVE A BABY!!!!” She screeches loudly, still looking at her computer and not at him. If she had she would see his eyes get wide and nearly drop the phone.

 

“ WHAT!!???” He yells, and there’s background noise as people come up to him and make sure he’s okay. He waves them off brusquely. “ GWEN WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” She clicks “book” for the absurdly expensive jet (but nothing’s ever been more worth the money) to fly her and Blake down to Scottsdale airport, him from Chicago and her from L.A. She finally looks up at him and catches her breath a little. 

 

“ Edie called, they’ve got a little girl that was just born to this teenager that wants to know that her baby is going to a good home. Edie convinced her and the local agency to let her meet us and potentially adopt her!!!” The last part is said at a near scream again and she closes her computer, running back through the house.

 

“ OH MY GOD!!!” He shouts, throwing a hand over his face. That seems to be it for his rapture, though he has a bright beaming smile like she’s never seen before as he puts the phone somewhere out of sight (she later finds out it’s in his pants pocket temporarily, she doesn’t notice, she’s too busy freaking out) and she can hear him making arrangements to cancel his show and hitch a ride to the local airport. He gets back on, this time throwing things in his bag from back in his dressing room. “ Do we have a flight?” He asks, obviously looking around to make sure he didn’t forget anything.

 

“ Yes I just booked one! Intercontinental Air will see you on Tarmac #4 at O’Hare in an hour.” He nods briefly. “ I gotta go! It’s gonna take, like, at least an hour if not more to get to the airport this time of day, plus I’ve gotta call Gavin and let him know what’s happening and my parents and maybe Adam can watch the boys and—“ She’s cut off as she starts to open the front door with their bags in hand.

 

“ GWEN!” His yell interrupts her motions. She stops, looking at him, annoyed. 

 

“ What?!” She shouts, irritated. He laughs hard.

 

“ PUT ON SOME DAMN CLOTHES BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE! YOU’RE NOT FLYING TO MEET OUR DAUGHTER NAKED!” He says at her laughingly, out of breath, and she looks down at herself to realize she’s as naked as she was in the bathtub, bubbles still clinging to parts of her body and her feet completely bare, covered in tub and mineral water. She starts laughing then, great heaping laughs that shake her whole body as she leans against the closed (thankfully) front door.

 

“ Oh my god,” She stutters out through her laughs, and they laugh and laugh until their eyes are teary. Without another word, she blows him a kiss through the phone and hangs up, going upstairs to dry off and put some clothes. After all, this is the most important job interview of her life; she’s gotta look good.

 

Makeup is asking too much though given her rapture; it’s all she can do to throw on a black tank top and jeans before braiding her dried hair and shoving her glasses up her nose. She grabs a sweater from downstairs, slips on her tennis shoes, and waves at the car that just pulled up at her house.  As she sits in the car, knee jiggling, she murmurs to herself.

 

“Here we go.”

 

Twenty four exhausting, emotional, nerve-ridden hours later, Gwen softly opens the door of their hotel room, five big bags from the local Target in hand (she’d gotten some weird looks but luckily no one had recognized her in that small target in Cave Creek; it’s probably because she looks like an overly exhausted hippie and not the famous Gwen Stefani). She stops as soon as it shuts at the sight she sees.

 

Blake is in the leather chair in the lounge area of the room, and he’s holding a little girl in his arms. His face is rapturous (she’d only ever seen that look on his face when she’d said yes to marrying him), and she watches as he strokes her cheek with one finger, ever so softly. The baby coos a little, and Blake smiles, huffing out a soft laugh not loudly enough to wake her. He looks up at Gwen and smiles a little tearfully, squeezing the baby slightly. She smiles back, mouthing, _I love you._ He mouths it back. 

 

Despite the fact that they were able to take her home that night (the mother, a young woman named Tess, had loved them immediately. Gwen thinks it might have something to do with the way Blake couldn’t hold back his gasp as he saw the bundle in the little bassinet and the way she’d stroked his hand to keep him from reaching for her before Tess allowed it), she knows the process isn’t going to be easy. They’d been looking almost solely in California because that’s where they both lived most of the time; there were laws to abide by in Arizona different from California and there were processes and months and months of waiting where they’d have to live out of this hotel room and keep the press off their backs until it was official. There’d be more forms and more money and more waiting; there’d be nights when they both would lie awake watching her crib because they were afraid that the judge would say that they weren’t fit to raise her. There’d be lawyers for the state who were snide and condescending about the fact that they were older and had only been married a couple years. 

 

The trouble was all worth it when they’d gotten to sign their name under the birth certificate under mother and father six months later. They’d posted to social media for the first time in six months ( a picture of the six members of their family wrapped around one another) that had a one sentence heading.

 

_I’ll love you forever, i’ll like you for always, as long as i’m living, my baby you’ll be. Juliette Isabel Shelton. God made her for us, and all of us for each other._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took parts of this last chapter from what actually happened on the day my parents adopted me (my mom running out of the bathtub naked and trying to leave the house like that and all and my dad having to be like, “DUDE YOU’RE NAKED WE ARE NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU PUT CLOTHES ON.”) It’s a story my family still laughs about. It’s obviously modernized, but it was really fun to write nonetheless because it bright back memories of my mom telling me this story.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, constructive criticism/plot ideas welcome! Thanks to everyone who submitted plot ideas, I will try to get through them as quickly as possible and use as many as I can. 
> 
> To anyone out there who is scared to write, don't be! It's a lot of fun and we all want to read your magical stories :).


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